


Stain

by Siver



Series: Final Fantasy VI/Ghost Trick [16]
Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, FFVI GT AU, Final Fantasy VI AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26937433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siver/pseuds/Siver
Summary: A small discovery in a world gone wrong shows it's even more wrong than Jowd thought
Series: Final Fantasy VI/Ghost Trick [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1169099
Kudos: 6
Collections: Personal Fictober 2020





	Stain

**Author's Note:**

> Fictober Day 10  
> Whumptober Prompt: "They look so pretty when they bleed" | "Trail of Blood" (not much of a trail admittedly, but the inspiration came from there)
> 
> Follow-up of azurefishnets' first chapter in her whumptober/fictober collection [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26756635/chapters/65274193)

He didn’t notice. The thought hit Jowd like a death knell, and maybe it was exactly that. After wandering in a randomly chosen direction that took him away from the shore where death wasn’t an option, and seeing that the world still followed some rules as the dim lighting grew darker, he decided he might as well pick a spot to settle for the night. So he had and now by the light of a small fire he stared at the red-brown stain on his shirt.

He had healed himself, so it was reasonable to assume it had merely come from one of the injuries sustained in the fall. It wasn’t as if he knew what or where those all had been. But if he focused he could almost still imagine Cabanela’s warmth where he was pressed against him on the Ladybird’s deck and there was little point in questioning a match, was there?

Cabanela had come in the end. He’d always been him and he, Jowd, had been wrong all along. All the pieces they couldn’t fit fell into place. He’d missed it all down to the blood staining his shirt now. A moment in that cell had been long set aside as merely another game, but that had been Cabanela lying on the cold stone floor. He had come for him then and he came for them again in the final moments. And just like Alma and Kamila Jowd let him fall too.

Jowd gave a bitter laugh. It all fell down and what was the point in the end? Cidgeon may as well have left him in the lab for all the good he’d done. He accomplished nothing and was prepared to kill the man he once claimed to know and love and he couldn’t see past the shadow. And still he’d come for him… and Alma held together a kingdom and came for him and Cidgeon had dragged him along despite how difficult he’d made it.

Now there was every chance they’d died while he remained. Or maybe he had died and this was his punishment; that was a comforting thought. If the world had any fairness left in it let that be case, but the world had proved time and time again such things didn’t matter.

And again he stared at that stain. How badly had he been injured? Would the fall have simply finished the job? And there wasn’t anything he could do. Another dull laugh escaped him. He merely escaped one prison to land in another, far bigger certainly, and just as useless.

Still, he had his resolve. That much he would hold onto. Just one life, to help just one person would be enough and so their sacrifices wouldn’t be in vain.

He lay next to the dwindling fire to sleep and wait for the next day and whatever it might bring.


End file.
